Today, we re going to talk about how we can make our school a better place for teachers and students to learn and achieve excellence.

Transcription

1 Today, we re going to talk about how we can make our school a better place for teachers and students to learn and achieve excellence. A place for opportunity. A place where we all achieve more together than we could as individuals. 1

2 We ll talk about teaching and learning and about how we can reach the goals teachers and students need with new school models. Finally, we ll talk about what our school(s) is (are) planning to do to offer teachers more career opportunities while helping more students have successful, joyful learning experiences. 2

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9 In an Opportunity Culture, each of these parts of the profession changes to value excellence and leadership, and to empower teachers. (Refer to slides, starting with Varied Roles. Varied roles, career advancement, much higher pay etc. All of these must be part of the teaching profession to become an Opportunity Culture for teachers and students.) 9

10 To have an Opportunity Culture in this profession, schools must do their part. Schools that value teaching excellence and career opportunity must be designed that way. The one teacher one classroom model just does not work well for promoting collaborative learning, teamwork, leadership development, the spread of excellence, or paid career paths. In a school committed to excellence for all teachers and students: New teachers will be trained by excellent peers, working in teams Development will happen on the job with great teachers helping others achieve excellence, too Collaboration and planning time will be built into the school day More teachers will build their peer leadership skills sooner, feeding a much stronger pipeline of leaders for our schools Evaluation will not be all gotcha. It will be in everyone s interest to use evaluations to help teachers improve and choose career paths that use their strengths, in the same school or another one 10

11 All of this will make all of us feel better, too, which is no small matter. You know that there s lots of talk about teachers being attacked. But really, when schools are designed to promote teaching excellence and they actually help far more teachers achieve it, all of our reputations as teachers are enhanced. You can stand tall with the lawyers, and nursing specialists, and doctors, and engineers, who made similar changes long ago. You too can be part of a selective, well paid, high performing profession. And you can do it in a profession that many wise economists have called the most important profession for our nation s future success! 11

12 When you put all this together, it adds up to an Opportunity Culture. In an Opportunity Culture, all teachers have career opportunities dependent upon their excellence, leadership, and student impact. Advancement allows more pay and greater reach. All teachers have opportunities to collaborate, learn, and develop toward excellence. And this can happen without leaving teaching. What we re really talking about is building a culture of excellence within schools, where excellence is revered and sought by all and where the school structures support the development and spread of excellence in teaching. And where more students get great teachers, right away. 12

13 An Opportunity Culture doesn t just help teachers who are already excellent by giving them more impact, pay, leadership, and power within schools. It also benefits new and solid teachers who can learn from these top teachers, focus on their strengths, and contribute to excellence while developing their teaching skills. 13

14 If an Opportunity Culture is what teachers need, what do students need in an Opportunity Culture? We all know that the teachers we most admire help their students learn so much and get excited about learning. They really know how to engage students, even when students have different learning advantages, interests, and personalities. They focus on excellence and personalized approaches. 14

15 So, let s imagine for a moment: school where all students (see slide) 15

16 To achieve this vision for students, though, they need what we today call an excellent teacher in nearly every class, every year not just once in a while. There are lots of research studies behind this now spanning three decades. (See slide.) And while no measure is perfect, what we know is that some teachers are already more consistently helping students learn more most years. Let s face it: They are the teachers we all want our own kids to have. So how can we give more students these teachers and help more of us teach like this? 16

17 Schools can extend the reach of excellent teachers to more students by redesigning jobs and using technology to make the best use of teachers time. Today, teachers spend significant portions of their time on noninstructional duties and instructional tasks that another professional or technology could do. By making the right changes, schools can save their teachers time for the more personalized teaching and higher order instruction they do so well, as well as reaching more students. And using new models, schools can build time into the school day for good teachers to collaborate with great ones in teams together, teaching teams can produce great learning for far more students. 17

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19 So, if we know what teachers need and what students need, what changes should we make in schools? It turns out there are several ways that schools can rearrange teaching roles and schedules. The right changes can allow schools to reach more students with excellent teachers and excellent teaching teams, for more pay, within available budgets, and create more time for collaboration, planning, and development during the school day. The models vary somewhat from the elementary to secondary levels. Today, we re just going to have a quick overview, but there are detailed models on OpportunityCulture.org. Speaker Option 1: Keep going through slides: In that case, use these notes: On OpportunityCulture.org, you can watch a short video that briefly walks through new school models that allow schools to pay teachers more for career advancement without relying on temporary grants. We don t have an Internet connection for that today, so I am going to walk you through it instead. Then skip the next slide, which has the video, and pick up at slide 21. Speaker Option 2: If you have an Internet connection and can stream a video, say: I m going to show you a fun four minute video that will describe some of the school models that can make all of this possible. Then show the video embedded on the next slide or on the home page. Pick back up at slide

20 Click on the image above to watch the video on OpportunityCulture.org. Alternatively, go to the reach video part 1/. 20

21 (Suggestion: Speaker can drop any model slides that don t apply.) Let s go through an overview of the models. The most obvious model that comes to people s minds involves changing class sizes. Now, before anyone gets too concerned, many of the other models can be used to reduce class or group sizes. So this is really just one option and maybe not the one most teachers would choose. Class size changes allow excellent teachers who want this option to teach larger classes, within reason a few more students each for more pay. How many more is really a very nuanced decision for the teacher and school, and would depend on the students ages and other needs. Schools can move toward larger classes for all teachers while increasing hiring rigor and expectations. Or they can shift small numbers of students into classes of consistently excellent teachers, which would give other teachers smaller classes. The pay benefit from class size changes varies based on the number of additional students a teacher teaches and the effect that has on how many teachers total the school now needs. Of course, many teachers already volunteer to take larger classes they just don t get paid for it as they would in other professions. So in some ways, this model is just about paying generous, excellent teachers for what they already do. 21

22 In elementary specialization, elementary teachers specialize in their best subjects or subject pairs math and science, or language arts and social studies, for example. Meanwhile, paraprofessionals can take care of students during lunch, recess, and transitions developing their social and behavioral skills, and completing noninstructional paperwork. Many adults are strong in these whole child developmental roles. Introducing time saving paraprofessionals lets core subject teachers collaborate during school hours. And it reduces their administrative load so they can focus on student learning. But core subject teachers still have long blocks of time with students, so they can engage with them and get to know them well. Specializing teachers can earn at least 20 percent more than in traditional school models, within budget. With specialization, between 100 and 300 percent more students can have excellent teachers. Total student load stays below 100 students for core subject teachers. Research indicates that, even in traditionally organized schools, having teachers specialize in core subjects at the elementary level would likely produce a significant performance increase. 22

23 In multi classroom leadership, teacher leaders can bring excellence to multiple classrooms by leading teams and continuing to teach. Of course, some schools already have grade level or department leaders. But rarely do these teachers have accountability for other teachers student outcomes, the authority to select and evaluate peers, or enhanced pay that is sustainably funded. With full accountability for all students in a pod of classrooms and explicit authority to lead teams, multi classroom teacher leaders have an enormous incentive to develop other teachers and help them discover and use their strengths. This kind of fully accountable mentoring with the leader ultimately responsible for team outcomes is very common in other professions. Multi classroom teacher leaders can increase pay very significantly even more than for solo and team teaching roles within budget. Many more classrooms of students can learn using the leader s methods and standards of excellence. And team teachers can learn the secrets of excellent teaching firsthand. 23

24 In Time Technology swaps, students spend a portion of time learning digitally as little as an hour daily. This lets teachers teach more students, for higher pay, without reducing personalized, higher order instructional time. If done right, teachers can gain planning and collaboration time during the school day, too. And teachers can earn at least 20 percent more, within budget. Schools can manage teachers total student loads by making smart decisions about how many additional classes, and of what size, each teacher has. Some schools are increasing reach while reducing individual class sizes. The critical driver of student outcomes is the effectiveness of the teacher, not the use of technology. So far, research continues to indicate this. So, for now, leveraging excellent teachers time, and using collaborative time to help other teachers improve, are both important elements. Today we have numerous and growing examples of schools using time technology swaps to achieve remarkable results with students, including high poverty schools. Rocketship Education, for example, produces outstanding achievement in high poverty elementary schools, while paying all teachers more. Carpe Diem is another early adopter. KIPP has begun successful experiments with this. And numerous district schools are planning right now to adopt time technology swaps. Most are calling it blended learning, but not all blended learning frees time for 24

25 collaboration and allows higher pay they should, but not all are committed to these critical elements of an Opportunity Culture yet. Here are some variations that you may hear about: In Rotations, students rotate between face to face teaching and digital instruction on a fixed schedule. In Flex models, teachers can pull students out of digital instruction for small group and individual teaching, in changing groups as needed. Elementary schools can reach 100 to 300 percent more students with better teachers, while students spend only about an hour daily in digital learning. Secondary schools can introduce swaps to increase the student reach of excellent teachers, while also preserving several extra hours weekly for additional planning and grading. A school could reach 50 percent more students with the best teachers in language arts, social studies, science, and math, while those students learn online no more than two hours daily. These teachers would have over three hours weekly of freed time for additional planning and grading. Because student loads are already high in some middle and high schools, some teachers may want to use swaps in just one or two periods at first. The more they can use digital instruction effectively to supplement face to face time, the more schools can pay them. Of course, many excellent teachers already use a portion of class time for independent and small group work time or online student research. Time technology swaps simply allow them to consolidate this time with a paraprofessional supervisor to increase the number of students they teach and to increase their income. 24

26 On the Redesigning Schools page of OpportunityCulture.org, you will find this table. You can click through to see short descriptions of all these models and more, as well as combinations. 25

27 Now, you could redesign classrooms to look pretty much like these models but without benefitting students, teachers, or school budgets. But as I said, the models we designed meet the five principles you see here: Excellence for more kids Higher pay for teachers Staying within budget (although schools may need help covering transition costs) Enabling development and immediate excellence in teams for solid performers And clear credit, accountability, and authority and more power for excellent teachers. To meet all of these principles, schools really need to try reach models throughout the school. In most reach models, larger scale in a school saves money and makes schedules work for increased collaboration and development. Timid implementation limits not only the number of students who learn with great teachers, but also teacher pay increases, financial sustainability, and opportunities for good teachers to achieve excellence. 26

28 Each reach model has a paid career path based on reaching more students, which makes sure that pay increases are not dependent on a temporary grant. (See slide.) Class size increases, even very small ones, should let Large Class Teachers earn more. Blended learning teachers reach more students when this model is done well. The additional per pupil funds minus the costs of new technology and paraprofessional support when students are using digital learning lets teachers earn more. Teacher leaders who take responsibility for more classrooms by leading teaching teams can reach more students and develop other teachers to their standards of excellence, too. By using a paraprofessional for noninstructional paperwork and student supervision in each teaching team, all the teachers and most definitely the teacher leader can earn more. So, in every model, excellent teachers take responsibility for more students, and in some cases for developing and leading their peers, and that frees funds to pay teachers more. Of course all of these paths have limits if a teacher has too large of a class, he or she probably won t get the same excellent results. And if a teacher leader leads too many classrooms at first, he or she won t have developed the leadership skills to help all the teachers get great results. But if schools make good decisions with their teachers, all of these models will help more students and make higher pay possible. 27

29 Finally, let s talk about our school(s). 28

30 I am going to share each of these elements with you. (Now: Use additional slides of your own; a handout; or speaking to share each of these items. You can include as little or much detail as time allows and as suits each audience.) 29

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